The Stone Foxes, Noise Pop, The Independent, 2/24/11

San Francisco’s The Stone Foxes headlined The Independent Thursday night as part of the 2011 Noise Pop Festival. Despite the rain many were in attendance, yet The Stone Foxes’ set still felt marred by normalcy.

While the bands’ two albums, 2008′s “The Stone Foxes” and 2010′s “Bears & Bulls,” provide plenty of blues-tinged rock, their music plays it fairly safe, a theme felt throughout the night.

With brothers Spence and Shannon Koehler on guitar and drums, Avi Vinocur on guitar and Aaron Mort on bass and guitar, the band’s set saw Vinocur and Mort continually trading places on guitar and bass. It’s an often distracting aspect of band’s live shows to flip-flop positions, and in The Stone Foxes set it caused misguided focus on instrumentation.

Greater preference toward one instrument provides better continuity in song composition, and while their vocals were on par, instrumentally the set felt mismatched and off kilter.

Highlights included the song “Stomp,” the first track off of “Bears & Bulls,” its hard beat inspiring many in the crowd to clap along. Shannon Koehler had an extended drum solo as well as a bass and drums jam with Vinocur, which eventually swelled into the whole group jamming.

At one point Mort placed a fan used by Shannon Koehler against his microphone in an unsuccessful attempt to warble his vocals. Afterward Shannon Koehler stepped out from his drum kit to sing and solo on the harmonica.

One of the strongest moments came during the encore, when the band covered Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” where Vinocur did rip an absolutely crushing bass line.

The Stone Foxes are mostly focused on creating solid live shows, and while plenty energetic, Thursday night’s fell just a little flat of achieving that. Better conformity in instrumentals and a consistent vocalist would greatly aide to carry out a stronger show.

L.A.’s Voxhaul Broadcast took the stage before The Stone Foxes and played a phenomenal set that blended both upbeat, danceable tracks with more experimental-sounding ones. Prior to them was San Francisco duo The Ferocious Few, whose simple yet pounding drums played the perfect complement to distorted two-chord riffs played on an amped acoustic guitar. Singer Francisco Fernandez belted out near-haunting vocals through a delayed microphone, and song titles such as “Suck It For Nothing” speak to the accuracy of their name. Opening the night were The Soft White Sixties, who jammed a few decent numbers including the upbeat track “It’s Too Late.”